between then. They all drove most of the Celts to Wales and in north to Scotland. Hardly anything is left from the Germanic culture. The AngloSaxons established a number of kingdoms. The most powerful ones were Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex. King Offa of Mercia was the most powerful king. Government and society The Saxons created institutions that made the state strong for 500 years. First of them was the kings council the witan. It issued laws and charters. The land was divided into small administrative areas shires counties which were ruled by sheriffs who worked for kings. The AngloSaxon brought a new but heavier plough to Britain which changed the land ownership and organisation. The land was now divided 23 big fields which were into long thin strips. Each family had a number of strips to plough. One of these fields was for spring crops, the other for autumn crops and the third was left to rest for a year
It was the beginning of a regular tax system. A new round of Danish invasion came at the beginning of the 11th cent. King Etherlred II was forced to flee the country at Christmas, 1013, leaving king Sweyn I of Denmark in possession. Sweyn died the following February, and Ethelred was restored. Ethelred's son Edmund II, Ironside, reigned only 7 months. The Danish King Canute II (Cnut), Sweyn's son, who was also king of Norway & Denmark, became King of England. He was chosen by the Witan. He married Ethelred's widow, Emma of Normandy. He divided England into 4 earldoms Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria & East Anglia and appointed an earl to rule over each of them. Canute continued to collect Danegeld tax & used the money for his army & fleet. He ruled according to the Anglo-Saxon laws. He became a Christian. Before he died, he left his throne of England to his son Hardicanute, but as he wasn't in England at the time of his father's deaths, the general feeling turned in favour
William saw England as an extension of his French domains. He dispossessed nearly all the Anglo-Saxon nobles of their lands, and put Normans in their places. These men discouraged rebellion by building strong castles throughout the country, especially in Wales. In return for their land, William's barons had to perform certain services. They and their bishops had to perform certain services. They and the bishops served as members of William's Council, which replaced the Anglo-Saxon Witan. The barons also had military obligations to serve as knights (army commanders) for William. William organised his English kingdom according to the feudal system which had already begun to develop in England before his arrival, but under the Normans, it became more organised. The word feudalism comes from the French word feu, which the Normans used to refer to land held in return for duty or service to a lord. The basis of feudal society
county or regional names to this day: Essex (East Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons), Wessex (West Saxons), East Anglia (East Angles). The seven kingdoms were first united into one under Egbert of Wessex, who became the first king of England (829–839). And the country got its new name, England, ‘the land of Angles’. One of the institutions created by the Anglo-Saxons in the ninth century was the King’s Council, called the Witan, which included nobles and senior churchmen. The Witan advised the king on important matters and was the highest law court. When a king died, the Witan chose a successor. The Anglo-Saxons had little use for towns, which fell into disrepair. But they had a great effect on the countryside, where they founded the thousands of self- sufficient villages which formed the basis of English society during the next thousand or so years. They cut down many forest areas in the valleys to make new fields. 32
annaabi.ee 
